Tonight
by BluEyes
Summary: Season 4, post-Kathy, pre-Mondler Mondler.


**Tonight**

~.~

_Um, holy crap, you guys! My last one-shot has gotten 17 reviews! That has not happened for me since, I don't know, about 2003. Literally. Ha, that rhymed. Thank you, thank you, thank you! And, if you were to keep it up, I wouldn't complain or anything. Ha, another rhyme…. :)_

_This is Season 4, post-TOW Joey's Dirty Day (because I don't have enough of those already…). Just a little pre-Mondler Mondler action for y'all. Eh. I can't pull off y'all, can I? No? Okay, let's pretend I never said that…._

~.~

Chandler barely made it through his bedroom door, having stumbled through the living room, somehow running into more furniture than he even remembered owning. Leave it to Joey to meet and hook up with a girl shortly before leaving the bar they had gone to in an attempt to appease Joey for missing the strip club phase of Chandler getting over Kathy – and to help Chandler get over Kathy, because Joey didn't quite buy he was suddenly okay, sweatpants or no sweatpants.

Kicking off his shoes, Chandler landed on his bed, but gasped as he was met by the gasp of another person.

"Chandler?" Monica asked sleepily. "Oh my god! What are you doing? You scared the crap out of me!"

Chandler stared back for a moment, realization sinking in. "I don't live here anymore, do I?" Monica laughed slightly at that. "Explains why I just ran into about ten couches I don't remember owning…."

"You and Joey end up going out tonight, then?"

"Yep," Chandler nodded in confirmation. "And he met a girl. Because he's Joey. And he always meets a girl. I never meet a girl," he rambled bitterly. "Well, I did meet a girl, but she was Joey's girl first, and then she cheated on me, anyway," he paused with a sigh, laying his head down on Monica's pillow. "Story of my life…."

Monica studied the still heartbroken look on his face. "Hey," she nudged his leg with her foot, and he looked up. "You know she didn't deserve you, right?" Although the girls had taken him to the strip club in an attempt to cheer him up, she hadn't really gotten the chance to talk to him about what had happened with Kathy. He hadn't really seemed to be up for it yet.

"Ha," Chandler exhaled a forced laugh.

"Hey, I'm serious." Monica propped herself up with her elbow beneath her head, Chandler still staring back at her. "I might mess around with you because you give all of us a hard time, but…you are sweet and smart and funny and-and sexy, and you-you deserve to be with someone who knows that, despite your hang-ups and insecurities, you are worth it."

Chandler continued to stare back for a moment, biting his bottom lip as he thought through what she had just said. Monica knew, from the look he was giving her, before he had leaned forward, what was coming next. Yet, when he captured her lips with his own, kissing her eagerly, it had still somehow come as a surprise. And she kissed him back as he leaned into her, fingertips beneath the hem of her shirt, resting on her hipbone as she parted her lips, returning his affections just as eagerly.

She had kissed Chandler before, but this…this seemed to be leading to something else entirely, as his hands now wandered above her tshirt, cupping one of her breasts through the thin, worn-out cotton shirt.

He was drunk. Very drunk. Too drunk to be doing this with right now. So drunk he had stumbled into her room because he thought it was still his room. Drunk and still upset over his ex-girlfriend. Drunk because he was still upset over his ex-girlfriend.

Oh, but she was in the middle of what felt like the longest dry-spell of her life, and somehow, surprisingly, even completely gone, he was very good at this. Actually, for how many months it had been (God, how many months had it been? That was a depressing thought), he could have been terrible at this, and it would have still been acceptable.

But, oh, no, he was very good at this, and it occurred to her, as he lightly ran his fingertips from the back of her kneecap and up her inner thigh, that he was ticking off the seven erogenous zones from the lesson she and Rachel had given to him when he started seeing Kathy. It was only fair, then, really, that she reap the benefits of that lesson, right?

...right?

She tried to talk herself into it, talk herself out of how drunk he was, but it was hard to have those kinds of coherent thoughts as he moved his way down her neck with soft kisses, now lying fully on top of her, legs tangled together, her hands on his bare back beneath his shirt, pressing her body against his.

Really, though, he was very drunk, and she should probably stop, before—

Chandler pulled back suddenly, glancing into her eyes only momentarily before planting a quick kiss on her lips and then lying back down on the bed beside her, both of their chests rising and falling rapidly.

"Nottonight," he mumbled as he moved away, though his arm still overlapped hers slightly on the space of the bed between them.

"What?" Monica asked, as shocked by him suddenly stopping as she had been by it starting.

"Not tonight. Not like this," he shook his head. "Too much history for— I'm too drunk, Mon," he mumbled, closing his eyes.

Monica stared back at him, though his eyes were closed, as her breathing returned to normal. Not tonight—did that mean—?

"Chandler?"

"Mmf?"

"Are you sleeping here?"

"Hmm." He was already as good as passed out.

Monica lay back down, staring up at the ceiling. It was probably best that _that_ didn't happen tonight, anyway. He was too drunk. And not over Kathy. But—

But, other than that—

What did he mean by not tonight? Did that mean that…? Did she even want…?

Monica closed her eyes; tonight wasn't the time to make those kinds of decisions or have those kinds of thoughts. Too many hormones racing through her system from the actions caused by too much alcohol in his.

When they woke up the next morning (spooning) and left her room together (Chandler very hung over and still in his clothes from the day before), they relayed the story to the others of him being so drunk he forgot he didn't live there anymore, and that he had stumbled into Monica's room and passed out there. They left out the middle events, and though neither of them so much as spoke a word of them, even to each other, when Phoebe commented on his sudden change in mood a few days later, and Joey attributed it to his night of going out with his best buddy in helping him to get over Kathy, he had winked at Monica when no one was looking. And he was ever so slightly more affectionate towards her. And more confident in flirting with her.

And then, a couple of months later, in London, when she had gone in search of Joey, wanting nothing but a meaningless night, and had instead found Chandler—cute, sweet Chandler— in his ridiculous pajamas, telling her how beautiful she was, she was suddenly sure that tonight _was _the night.

When he asked how drunk she was, she had been terrified he would repeat _not tonight_, that she was too drunk. She had countered the question with enough of a joke—_drunk enough I know I want to do this; not so drunk you should feel guilty for taking advantage_—to prove she was sober enough to coherently decide to do this, and he had retorted that that was the perfect amount.

_Thank god it had been the perfect amount._

Because the rest, well, the rest was the first part of the next chapter of their already pretty lengthy history.


End file.
